Eddie Murphy Moves Into Scripted TV With ‘The Chairman’ For Peacock From Matthew Weiner

Eddie Murphy is heading back to the small screen for his first scripted series.

The Beverly Hills Cop and Coming To America star, who got his start on Saturday Night Live, is to star in The Chairman, a drama series from Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner that is in the works at Peacock.

Murphy has starred in around 40 movies since 48 Hours and has never headlined a scripted series, although he has created two shows back in the day: animated comedy The PJs for Fox and The Royal Family for CBS, both in the 1990s.

Details of the series have not been disclosed, but it being written and exec produced by Weiner, who has not had a series picked up since The Romanoffs for Amazon in 2018.

The Chairman comes from Yellowstone producer 101 Studios and Universal Television.

It marks the first project for the company, which is also behind series such as Landman and MobLand, since it struck a deal with NBCUniversal last year that coincided with Taylor Sheridan also moving his deal. The deal for the David Glasser-run company started in January of this year.

Murphy and Weiner, who also previously wrote and exec produced HBO’s The Sopranos, will also exec produce.

Murphy is coming off the back of Netflix documentary Being Eddie, which was directed by Angus Wall and came out last year. His last two movies were The Pickup, which came out last year via Amazon, and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. His next film is Shrek 5, which is set to be released next year.